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Crowd Financing Debuted Last Week (sort of)

First the good news: Starting Sept 30, US federal law allows small startup companies to raise equity on the Internet, without the expensive barrier to register the shares for public trading with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Companies can now raise unlimited amounts of capital simply by using social media sites or elsewhere on …

Strategies for Including Operating Funds in Program Grants

My two previous postings included the nuts and bolts of preparing financials for grant proposals to private and corporate foundations. This post will focus solely on a significant issue facing NPO’s seeking grant funding: namely that many foundations don’t provide general operating support. Instead, they prefer to fund specific programs or projects, and often something …

Writing In A Disorganized Environment

What do you do when you are working in a chaotic organization and there are no guidelines and no procedures nor processes to follow, and you have been assigned to create documents. What is the first thing that you do? Research, research, research….find out: if any coherent software development life cycle exists; what is the …

4 Methods for Reviewing Decisions

Throughout a facilitated session, you use three parking boards to track important information:
The “decisions list” identified decisions or recommendations made by the group during the session.
The “issues list” included topics that need to be discussed later in the session or entirely outside the session.
The “actions list” documented actions to be performed sometime after the completion of the session.
At the end of the meeting, review all three parking boards, starting with the decisions list.

Painting the Picture – A Sample Visioning Exercise

To help determine your organization’s goals, utilize a visualization exercise that guides the team through a scenario ten or more years into the future. The scenario should paint a picture in which the organization is achieving tremendous success. The visualization should help participants see what was accomplished, how it was accomplished, and how customers, employees, competitors, and any other significant stakeholders view the organization.

Crisis Management before Grand Theft Auto Online Launch

Rockstar’s reputation may hang in the balance With Grand Theft Auto V claiming the record for not only the fastest-selling video game, but also fastest-selling entertainment product of all time, creator Rockstar North is in crisis management mode as it prepares its servers to handle millions more players than expected at the launch of its …

Peer-To-Peer Solicitation Raises the Most Money

I take the strong and unwavering position that members of the board of trustees and other volunteers are the people who must raise all or most of the money for a non-profit organization. These days far too many boards and eager-to-please development professionals are starting down the slippery slope of relying on staff to be …

Decision, Decisions, Decisions

Should I take this offer or wait for a better one? Should we go with the candidate who has the most experience or the one who needs seasoning but has fire in the belly? Do we purchase n a new computer system now or wait until the next fiscal year? Over the years, as an …